The education officer of Madhya Pradesh’s Shajapur district has, in a written order dated December 14, as reported by The Indian Express, said that both government and private schools will face action if students take part in Christmas-related events without the permission of their parents. This, interestingly, includes children dressing up as Santa Claus or Christmas trees for plays or other events.

The written order by district education officer Vivek Dubey, issued on December 14, reads, “Students should not be made part of Christmas-related events, including making them dress up or play roles like Santa Claus and Christmas tree, without the written consent of parents, to prevent any untoward situation or incident.”

“Unilateral disciplinary action will be proposed against your organisation if there are complaints in this regard,” it added. In a justification of what may be seen as an arbitrary action, Dubey is reported to have said there have been complaints in the past, and that the order does not ban Christmas events in schools.

“The circular does not ban any events in schools during the coming festive season. In the past, there have been instances of parents complaining about their wards being made part of such events in schools without their consent, and the circular is aimed at preventing such disputes. It’s better to prevent such controversies rather than acting after the incident has occurred,” he said.

Now, emboldened by this development that was widely reported in the media, far right group Sanskriti Bachao Manch in Bhopal also issued a warning to a school, asking its administration not to allow students to dress up as Santa Claus without the permission of parents. In a display of competitive aggression, the outfit’s president, Chandrasekhar Tiwar, also protested against the “long leaves” given to students during Christmas, alleging that on Diwali, only two days’ leave is granted while on Christmas, it is 10 days.

In 2022, the VHP had asked schools not to ask students to dress up as Santa Claus or bring Christmas trees without their parents’ permission, claiming that this was “an attack on Hindu culture” and “a conspiracy to influence Hindu children with Christianity”

Meanwhile, UCA News reported that Christians in the central Indian state are worried over a government order asking schools to seek parents’ nod before involving students in Christmas events.  “This is the first time that we are coming across such an order,” said Father Rocky Shah, public relations officer of Jhabua diocese in the state.

Most schools in Madhya Pradesh are run by Catholic and other Christian denominations and its leaders view the circular as a deliberate attempt to target and harass Christians and their institutions. Shah also reportedly told UCA News on Dec. 22, “We never got such an order during the celebrations of major Hindu festivals.”

The December 14 order makes it clear that “students cannot be allowed to dress up as Santa Claus or put up a Christmas tree” in their schools without written permission from parents.

Madhya Pradesh is currently ruled by the supremacist, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Hindutva party won a fresh mandate at the recent assembly elections, the results of which were declared on December 3. “It is quite alarming to see such a government order,” Shah noted.

A government official, however, defended the action stating that circular is a “precautionary measure” that was aimed at “curbing unwanted incidents.”

Jerry Paul, national president of the Sarva Isai Mahasabha (All Christian Federation), an ecumenical body, told UCA News that the government should rein in trouble-makers rather than threaten the school management with “unilateral action.” “Students dressing up as Santa Claus or putting up Christmas trees are not religious actions, but they are a message of happiness and peace,” he said. He also pointed out to the authorities that “the nativity of Jesus Christ is celebrated in churches and not in schools.” He further asserted that in a democratic country, everyone has the right to spread the message of love and happiness.

Church leaders were apprehensive that the pro-Hindutva party may come out with a similar circular in other districts of the state. Over the past years, Christian schools, hostels and orphanages in Madhya Pradesh have witnessed several surprise raids from child rights protection bodies in the past few years.

Several malicious complaints and cases have even been filed in Madhya Pradesh against Church officials, including a bishop, priests and nuns, under the draconian anti-conversion law. Madhya Pradesh has recorded 35 incidents of persecution against Christians till November 2023 this year.

Christians make up a mere 0.29 percent of 72 million people in the Hindu majority state.

Related:

Christmas of the 2% is being imposed on the 98%, says Suresh Chavhanke

Christmas 2022: Hindu supremacist groups chant “Death to Santa Claus!”

No gatherings allowed for Christmas and New Year in Delhi?

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Developmental psychology suggests that fantastical beliefs in children are associated with positive developmental outcomes. And parents need not worry, children will bust the Santa myth themselves, when the time is right. (Shutterstock)

Specifically, many parents worry about whether they should encourage their children’s belief in the physical reality of Santa, about the potential impact of lying to them and what to do when their children realize they’ve been duped.

Rest assured, parents, it’s not all up to you. In fact, the best approach involves supporting your kids while they figure it out on their own. They will, and it won’t be as bad as you expect.

As a developmental scientist, I spend most of my time researching children’s trust. I’m interested in how trust develops and what happens when it’s broken. During the holiday season, I spend a lot of time thinking about Santa.

As a proud auntie of three children under the age of four, my Santa musings have taken on a new significance. But, unlike many parents, I see the development of a belief in the physical reality of Santa, and the eventual myth-busting, as impressive achievements to be celebrated, not feared!

Research in the field of developmental psychology suggests that such fantastical beliefs are not actually harmful, but are associated with a number of positive developmental outcomes — from exercising the “counterfactual reasoning skills” needed for human innovation to boosting emotional development.

When kids question the magic

The vast majority of children will at some point believe in Santa. While many children learn these beliefs at home, the cultural support for Santa is so strong that children in households that don’t actively endorse the myth still sometimes believe.

Yet, despite Santa’s impressive marketing strategy, most children will abandon their belief by the age of eight. Though many parents fear this transition, it’s an inevitable part of growing up.

How can Santa be prepping for Christmas at the North Pole and greeting kids in the mall and scuba diving? Here a diver feeds a ray at the Coex Aquarium in Seoul, South Korea in December 2017. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Santa is a mix of mundane and magical qualities. He is a jolly man dressed in red with a snowy beard. He also flies with the help of reindeer, visits all the world’s children in a single night and knows if you’ve been naughty or nice.

With age, a child’s thinking develops to the point where they start to notice Santa does magical things that physical objects can’t. This newfound knowledge is evident in the types of questions children are asking.

Younger children are often interested in general details about Santa, like: “Where does Santa live?” Older children are more likely to hone in on Santa’s extraordinary abilities: “How does Santa get around the whole world in a single night?”
 

Should you bust the myth?

Recognizing these challenging questions for what they are — cognitive development in action — may free some parents from the burden of belief.

If your goal is to extend your child’s belief in the physical reality of Santa, you can respond to the questions with plausible explanations or evidence. This is where NORAD, the online tracker that shows Santa’s progress around the globe on Christmas Eve, can come in handy.

If instead you want to let your child take the lead, you can simply direct the question back to them, allowing your child to come up with explanations for themselves: “I don’t know, how do you think the sleigh flies?”

Finally, if you think it’s time to usher your child into the common adult understanding of Santa as a beloved fantasy figure, you can provide different, disconfirming evidence and explanations.

My Santa myth was busted shortly after the discovery of Santa’s gift tags in my mother’s robe pocket. Regardless of which strategy you choose, it is inevitable that eventually the evidence against Santa will become overwhelming and the belief will become unsustainable.
 

Lies with good intentions

If you choose to extend your child’s belief in Santa, and your child realizes you have deceived them, how will they respond?

If Santa’s elves make handmade toys, how does he deliver electronics? And what does this do to the magic of Christmas for children from poorer families? (Shutterstock)

As it turns out, probably pretty well. In a study examining children’s reaction to discovering the truth about Santa, parents generally took the transition much harder than their children, who actually felt quite positive about the discovery.

And why wouldn’t they? Santa is one of countless things children learn through the testimony of others. Because we rely on others for so much of what we know, humans are surprisingly well-equipped for the task. They evaluate both the source and content of the information they have received in light of their existing knowledge and their memory of past interactions with the source.

This means that, when compared to all of the reliable information that parents share with their children over their lives, it is highly unlikely a single lie will cause irreparable damage.

Children are also discovering the truth about Santa at around the same time they are starting to understand that some lies, like Santa lies, are told with good intentions.
 

Why Santa is for small gifts

Believing in impossible beings such as Santa is a special kind of magic available only to children.

Research suggests that fantastical beliefs are associated with a number of positive developmental outcomes. So, if your child is still a believer, feel free to protect that belief.

As your child ages, especially if there are younger siblings in the house, there are creative ways to keep the Santa experience positive, even after their belief in the physical reality of Santa has been abandoned.

Finally, always remember, as children are figuring out how the world really works, that they are going to look to the people and things around them for evidence.

It might be a good idea to give modest gifts from Santa and save the big ones for parents, because no matter what your family income, every child deserves to feel loved by Santa on Christmas morning.

Kristen Dunfield, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Concordia University
 

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Image credit:  Real India/via YouTube

Dear Santa,

We have been good this year. We have been trusting, we grappled with demonetisation and are patiently standing in queues since November 10 to deposit and withdraw money. Though doubts have been raised about the fruitfulness of the ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, most of us have nothing but conviction and faith in our leader, Narendra Modi. Yes we have been a patient lot, a good lot, a persevering lot. So, we reckon that no matter what we did before November 8, these past 50-odd days should give us a lot of brownie points for us in your books.

Surely, you are nodding in agreement when you read this. One bearded man served us “kadak chai” and we now hope another bearded man will leave us many gifts at our homes this weekend. Here’s a handy list of presents that Indians need this Christmas:

1. Powerful binoculars: We could do with a pair of binoculars to spot Urjit Patel, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India. He went missing for close to three weeks after the biggest monetary experiment conducted in India on November 8, making a brief appearance on November 27, and has not been seen too often since. If we do manage to find him, we would like him to explain to us what exactly were the “detailed deliberations” taken before the demonetisation decision. We understand the governor is not as talkative as his predecessor but then a lack of communication from the institution behind the printing of our currency notes, especially at a time when they are in short supply, does not help matters.

2. More Rs 10 coins: Since the RBI cannot make up its mind about its decisions, it needs help. For instance, a day after it imposed restrictions on depositing more than Rs 5,000 in banks on December 19, it withdrew the decision. Maybe, flipping a coin would help the central bank take a call and stick to its decisions for at least a week. A Rs 10 coin is sturdy and easy to toss.

3. A reverse sensor: The RBI and Ministry of Finance could do with a reverse sensor so that they do not keep driving into tricky corners. In the month and a half since demonetisation was announced, the RBI-Ministry of Finance combine has issued 60 notifications as it struggles to get out of one tight spot after another. A reverse sensor would help those at the wheel navigate or park the vehicle properly.

4. A treasure map: The Income Tax department faces the unenviable task of hunting down those who have stashes of black money. A treasure map would help them locate these shady deposits among the many lakhs of crores of old notes that have come back into the banking system. After all, the IT department will be preoccupied with preparing and sending notices and demand letters to these evil people. Surely, you can nudge them along their way with a map marking out all the areas of hidden gold – sorry, currency.

5. Flip-flops: Demonetisation was announced as a bold and strong move against black money, counterfeit currency, and terror financing. Since then, its aim has changed constantly. This IndiaSpend article tells us that between November 8 and November 27, the narrative about the demonetisation exercise swung from black money elimination to a cashless economy, as evident in the Prime Minister’s speeches. As flip-flops seem to be the flavour of the season, why don’t you give the government a good good pair of flip-flops so that they can park themselves at a beach during the Christmas break, while the rest of India struggles to withdraw money from banks?

6. An additional printing press: The 50 days of patience that Prime Minister Modi demanded of us to cope with the hardships of demonetisation ends on December 30. By all indications, it is highly unlikely that the acute shortage of new currency notes will get resolved by then. Currently, there are four printing presses across India working towards easing this shortage of notes. Perhaps an additional one can help us access our money sooner.

7. Balm: A big dose of balm to soothe the aches and pains of everyone standing for hours outside banks and ATMs to get their money is a must. We’ve been told everyone is used to queues in India. That might be so, but there is a difference in doing something out of choice and doing it out of compulsion. To wait inordinately to access one’s own money is injury enough and we have been doing it for weeks at a stretch.

8. A big goodie bag: Everyone is waiting for a Budget that brings relief to the taxpayers to compensate for the pains of demonetisation. Media reports are already full of hope for income tax breaks and sops in Budget 2017-’18, due in less than two months from now. Let’s hope Finance Minister Arun Jaitley lives up to these expectations and delivers a bold and visionary budget.

So, Santa, we really hope you will be kind and generous this Christmas. We’ll look eagerly to our chimneys over the weekend.

(Anupam Gupta is a chartered accountant and has worked in equity research since 1999, first as an analyst and now as a consultant. His Twitter handle is @b50).

Courtesy: Scroll.in.
 

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